Attorney: Bank of America employees aided Agape fraud

Manhattan attorney Jacob Zamansky has filed an amended lawsuit against the Bank of America, charging that it breached its ‘know your customer’ obligations by allowing a convicted felon to manage millions through about two dozen BofA accounts.

Zamansky, of Zamansky & Associates, claims that the bank “aided and abetted, encouraged, and rendered substantial assistance” to the $413 million fraud federal prosecutors say was perpetrated by Nicholas Cosmo and his company Agape World.

The original suit claimed that the Bank of America branch in West Hempstead assigned more than one bank employee to work out of Cosmo’s office in Hauppauge and supplied direct access to the bank’s accounts and systems.

Zamansky said bank employees stationed inside Agape’s Hauppauge headquarters knew that Cosmo was taking investor money and diverting it to his account.

Zamansky now says that bank employees provided Cosmo access to information about the cash balances of Agape investors who had Bank of America accounts. The amended suit claims that those Agape investors routinely received aggressive solicitations from Cosmo when their balances swelled.

Federal charges against Cosmo allege that he lost nearly $100 million in online futures trading and Zamansky claims the bank improperly approved those transfers of funds.

The suit also claims that futures trading companies are at fault because Cosmo had been barred from associating with the securities industry. Zamansky’s suit says that the trading companies should have also verified the “source and propriety” of the millions that came from a convicted felon.

Cosmo had served 20 months in federal prison for securities fraud and was released in August 2000.
No one from Bank of America could be reached for comment.

3 comments

I’m thrilled to hear that Mr. Zamansky may have Bank of America on the ropes. Additionally, I think whoever assigned the bankers to Cosmos office should also be brought up on criminal charges if possible. They way I see it, that person, or persons, fully knew what was going on and aided Cosmo in committing his scam. Anyone out there who owns a business try to get your own personal bankers working with you, in you office.

These guys deserved to lose all their money. Bank of America responsible for them giving their life savings to a convicted felon to earn returns that would make a loan shark blush and they want TAXPAYERS to pay for it???? No – y’all can try and find your money – you give it to nick – he has it, go get it.